A Sense of Place

Studies in British and Irish legal history in memory of W.N. Osborough

Sparky Booker and Kevin Costello, editors

W.N. Osborough was described by the Irish Times on his death in 2020 as Ireland’s ‘greatest legal historian’. He wrote prolifically on Irish legal history and culture for over fifty years, re-established legal history as an undergraduate option in university law degrees and was the moving force behind the establishment of the Irish Legal History Society in 1988.

Throughout this volume the authors uncover new insights into the evolution and practice of law in Britain and Ireland and honour Nial’s impressively wide-ranging interests, which spanned traditional periodizations and geographical divides.

Contributors: Sir John Baker, Paul Brand, Jane Ohlmeyer, Colum Kenny, Robin Frame, Sparky Booker, Niamh Howlin, Thomas Mohr, Ian Williams, Kevin Costello, R.H. Helmholz, Charles Lysaght, Richard McMahon, Paddy Waldron, Paul O’Brien, Mary O’Dowd, Colm Lennon and John McCafferty. 

Sparky Booker is a historian of law, culture and society in late medieval Ireland. She is an assistant professor in history at the School of History and Geography at DCU. Kevin Costello is an assistant professor at UCD. His principal research interests lie in the fields of Legal History and Administrative Law.